The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-02
PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
REV. TALMAGE TELLS HOW PAUL,
STIRRED UP EPHESUS.

REV. TALMAGE TELLS HOW PAUL,
STIRRED UP EPHESUs.
Bad Books Which Cost $4,000 Pieces
of Silver Burned in Public Place
The Printing Press Mighty Power
for Good or for Evil.
BROOKLYN, May 1.--At the Tabernacle
this morning the pastor the Rev. T. Dewitt
Talmage, d. D., expounded some of the
Proverbs of Solomon. The congregation
sang with magnificent effect the hymn begin
ming
''Arm of the Lord, awake! awake.
Put on thy strength, the nations shake"
DR.. Talmage took for his text Acts xix, 10:
"Many Of them also which used curious arts
brought their books together and burned
them before all men; and they counted the
price of them and found it fifty thousand
pieces Of silver"
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus with
some lively sermons about the sins of that
place. Among the more important results
was the fact that the citizens brought out
their bad books, and in puplic place made
out with their arms full Of EpheSian litera-
ture and tossing it into the flames. | hear
an economist standing by and saying:
''Stop this waste Here are seven thousand
five hundred dollars worth of books-do you
propose to burn them all up! If you don't
want to read them yourselves, sell them and
let somebody else read them.n "No," said the
people, ''if these books are not good for us,
they are not good for anybody else, and
we shall stand and watch until the last leaf
has turned to ashes. They have done us a
world of harm, and they shall never do
others harm.n Hear the flames crackle and
roar.
Well, my friends, one of the wants of the
cities of this country is great bonfire of
bad books andnewspapers. Wehave enough
fuel to make blaze 200 feet high. Many of
the publishing houses would do well to
throw into the blaze their entire stock of
goods. Bring forth the insufferable trash
and put it into the fire, and let it be known,
in the presence of God and angels and men,
that you are going to rid your homes of the
overlapping and underlying curse of profit
gate literature.
The printing press is the mightiest agency
on earth for good and for evil. The minis
ter of the Gospel, standing in pulpit, has
a responsible position; but do not think it
is as responsible as the position of an editor
or publisher. AT what distant point of
time, at what far out cycle of eternity, will
cease the influence of Henry j. Raymond,
or Horace Greeley, or James Gordon
Bennett, or a Watson Webb, or an Erastus
Brooks, or a Thomas Kinsellal Take the
simple statistic that our New York dailies
now have circulation of about eight hun
dred and fifty thousand per day, and add 10
it the fact that three of our weekly periodi-
Gals have an aggregate circulation Of about
one million, and then cipher, if you can, how
far up, and how Tar down, and
how far ont, reach the influences
of the American printing-press. Great
God, what is to be the issue of all thisg |
believe the Lord intends the printing press
to be the chief means for the worlds rescue
and evapgelization, and | think that the
great last battle of the world will not be
fought with swords and guns, but with
types and presses--a purified and Gospel
literature triumphing over, trampling
down and crushing out forever that which
is depraved. The only way to overcome
unclean literature is by scattering abroad
that which is healthful. May God speed
the cylinders of an honest, intelligent,
aggressive, Christian printing-press.
| have to tell you this morning that the
greatest blessing that ever came to this ma
ton is that of an elevated literature, and
the greatest scourge has been that of un-
clean literature This last has its victims
in all occupations and departments 1t has
helped to fill insane asylums, and peniten-
tiaries, and aims houses, and dens of shame.
The bodies of this infection lie in the hospi-
tails and in the graves, while their souls are
being tossed over into a lost eternity, an
avalanch of hOrrcr and despair.
The London plague was nothing to it.
That counted its victims by thousands, but
this modern pest has already shovelled its
millions into the charnel- mousse of the NOR
ally dead. The longest rail train that ever
ran over the Erie or Hudson tracks was not
long enough or large enough to carry the
beastliness and the putrefacton which have
been gathered up in bad books and newspa-
pers of this land in the last twenty years
Now, it is amid such circumstances that
put this morning a question of overmaster-
ing Importance to you and your families.
What books and newspapers shall we read I,
You see group them together. A news
paper is only book in q swifter and more
portable shape and the same rules which
will apply to book reading will apply to
newspaper reading What shall we readl
Shall our minds be the receptacle of every
thing that an author has a mind to write?
Shall there be no distinction between the
tree of life and the tree of death. Shall we
stoop down and drink out OF the trough
which the wickedness of men has filled with
pollution and shame. Shall we mire in i'm.
purity, and chase fantastic will-o'the-wisps
across the swamps, when we might walk in
the blooming gardens of Godl O not
For the sake of our present
and everlasting welfare we must
make an intelligent and Christian choice.
Standing as we do, chin deep in fictitious
literature, the first question that many of
the young people are asking me is: "Shall
we read novelsF' reply: There are novels
that are pure, good, Christian, elevating TO
the..s.heart and ennobling To the life. But
| have still further to say that l believe
that ninety-nine out Of the one hundred
novels in this day are baleful and destfuc-
tive to the last degree A pure work of fic-
tion is history and poetry combined. 1t is
history of things around us, with the Ii
censes and the assumed names of poetry
The world can never pay the debt
which it owes TO such fictitious writers as
Hawthorne and Mckenzie, and Landon and
Hunt, and Arthur and Marion Harland and
others, whose names are familiar TO all. The
fOllies of high life were never better
exposed than by Miss Edgeworth. The
memories of the past We're never
more faithfully embalmed than
in the writings of Walter Scott. Cooper's
novels are BEAUTIFULLY redolent with the
breath of the scaweed, and the air Of
the American forest Charles Kings
ley has smitten the morbidity of the world,
and led a great many to appreciate the
poetry Of sound health, strong muscles and
fresh air. Thackeray did grand work in
paripatIir tho t1gatppdptss tro,afilitV aud